A Quinnipiac survey in Florida reports that in the Republican primnary for US Senate, Marco Rubio holds a commanding lead over Gov.
Charlie Crist, 56% to 33%. In general election match ups, Rubio holds a very modest lead over Democrat Rep. Kendrick Meek (D), 42%
to 38% (Crist's lead over Meek is wider, 48% to 34%.). But what if Crist, now poised to loose his Republican primary bid, runs as an independent in the general? According to Quinnipiac, he would win by a slight margin, with Crist at 32%, followed by Rubio at 30% and Meek at 24%.

Is Barkley Killing Franken In Minnesota? A new poll of "likely votes" in Minnesota released yesterday by Mason-Dixon reports incumbent Republican Norm Coleman leading his opponent, DemocratAl Franken by six points, 42-36, with 12% of respondents favoring Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley. The state is not new to third party candidacies, electing independent Jessie Ventura governor a few cycles back. "If Coleman puts daylight between Franken’s numbers and his own on
Election Day, he may have Barkley to thank," writes Mason-Dixon, "While he has shored up 89%
of voters who identify as Republicans, with only 4% defecting to
Barkley’s camp, only about three out of four Democrats say that they
support their party nominee, with 17% of Democratic voters favoring the
Independence Party candidate over Franken." For more on this race and the "Third Party Effect" click here.

Early Voting: What Happens With The Exit Polls? With an estimated 30% of all voters expected to cast their ballots early this year, what will happen to the exit polls, surveys that question respondents they leave their polling stations after voting. Such polls have been plagued by problems in recent years, from corrupted samples to outright mis-calling of elections (early rounds of exit polling in 2004 predicted an easy win by John Kerry, exit polls in the Democratic primaries this year were notoriously off. How will pollsters account for the 30% who will be out of their reach on election day, and will their attempted adjustments corrupt or correct the problem. For more on this issue, which could greatly impact media coverage on election night, click here.

How Accurate Are Public Opinion Polls? In the last week of Election 2008, voters are left scratching their heads, not sure what to believe about polls. One survey shows Obama up by +15%, another taken over the same period, shows the race almost tied, at +2% Obama. Some pollsters now say it is almost certain that Obama's lead will hold' a few hold out the possibility of a squeaker. What gives? And are pollsters themselves worried that they might be getting it wrong, one way or the other? An article published this morning in the Washington Post tries to sort things out with the state of polling in Election 2008. For the full article click here.

The Race Factor: Will Obama's race have an impact on the outcome of election 2008? This is one of the most discussed and debated questions of this cycle. With Obama as the first African-American candidate to head the national ticket of any major party, the issue remains on the table. A new CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll suggests that the candidate's race may not matter as much as some have feared. CNN's analysis of the results suggests that Obama may, in fact, gain as many votes because of his race as he loses, because some pro-Obama African-American respondents also maintain that race does matter in their decision. For the full CNN analysis click here.

Do It Yourself Exit Poll: Writer Joel Stein--not a professional
pollster--recently decided to conduct his own "exit poll" of early voters in a
key battleground state: Ohio. So on Oct. 9, he traveled to Cincinnati, where
people had started voting a week earlier, and camped outside an early-voting
site in to conduct America's first 2008 exit poll. The results are both humorous
and telling: who choses to participate in these surveys can have an enormous
impact on the outcome. For
the full Time magazine article click here

Early Voting Unprecedented In The South: A record number of early voters have turned up in a number of southern states. In Georgia, early voting is double what it had been at this point in 2004. As of Wednesday, some
825,000 had cast their ballots, about 15 percent of Georgia's registered voters. In Florida, about 150,000 people casts votes this Monday and Tuesday alone. And in North Carolina more than 500,000 voters have already cast ballots. And while African-African early voting is at 2004 levels in some states (such as Ohio), it's record breaking thus far in NC and GA. Click here for the Associated Press coverage of the dramatic increase in early voting in the south.